In her NAC Orchestra debut, Korean pianist Yeol Eum Son demonstrates why she is one of the most sought-after concert pianists at work in the world today.

Son’s power to project bold dramatic contrasts make her the perfect messenger for Sergei Prokofiev’s formidable Piano Concerto No. 2, a blockbuster film score without the film, conjuring the marching of giants, “cinematic chase scenes”, and exquisite tenderness. Yeol Eum Son is reunited on stage with Portuguese conductor Joana Carneiro, who, in addition to having led many of the world’s finest orchestras on stages throughout the UK, Europe, Canada, the United States, Asia, and South America, makes her return to Southam Hall. 

Of her new OKWIINOWAK, Indigenouscomposer and NACO Creative Partner Barbara Assiginaak says, “To my own ears, the orchestras of the world emerged from the nature all around us. Without the nature within which we dwell, we, as humans, have no inspiration, no voice, and no joy. We are all part of nature, and so is the orchestra….” Hear the NACO winds featured in this world premiere performance.

Igor Stravinsky composed his iridescent ballet The Firebird for the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev’s Ballet Russes, but the music has endured over the years and achieved even greater recognition as an orchestral suite. The 1945 version is the result of a re-write that allowed the work to be copyrighted in the United States, shortly before Stravinsky became an American citizen.